


The Eyeliner Incident

by spacemagic



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (be gay do crimes basically), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Bisexual Katara (Avatar), F/F, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Ozai's A+ Parenting, Rivals to Almost Lovers, Rivals to Lovers, Shoplifting, a lot of rooftop climbing in this one, sometimes redemption is putting your father in jail cutting your hair and becoming an anarchist, teenage girls dealing with their emotions with the subtlety of a baseball bat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26770081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemagic/pseuds/spacemagic
Summary: “Bitch. You can say bitch.”“I’m not going to saythat.”“It’s accurate. And no great betrayal of your deeply held feminist principles if I give you my explicit permission to do it. Really. You can call me a bitch.” She points to herself. “Bitch. It’s easy. You try.”“No! – I’m not going to call you a bitch, Azula.” She sighs. “It’s almost like youwantme to hate you.”=========Frustrated with life at the snobby, elite Ba Sing Se Academy she'd won a scholarship to attend, Katara, a fourteen year old would-be revolutionary, begins sneaking out of the upper ring at night to cause trouble. It only gets really dicey when the great-granddaughter of the deposed Fire Lord Sozin, a girl with razor-sharp eyeliner, gets involved.or: getting caught shoplifting with the girl you hate most in the world can be a very moving experience, actually.[prompt for ATLA WLW week 2020 - day 2: rivals]
Relationships: Azula/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 76
Kudos: 294





	The Eyeliner Incident

**Author's Note:**

> not beta'd / limited editing on my part
> 
> no turtleducks were harmed in the making of this fic.

It started with the infamous ‘eyeliner incident’. Two girls, a slim, circular container of liquid eyeliner in daring black, a sticker with a hundred yuan more than she was willing to pay (and really, who would profit off it? Certainly _not_ the harassed shop-workers), and a date in a pokey little back office while a balding middle-manager turned mall cop threatened them with a shoplifting charge.

Well. If Katara was honest with herself, it went back further than that.

She had packed up her (quite pleasant, why, thank you _very much_ for asking) life in the Southern Water Tribe to chase after her idiot brother and attend some “elite” academy with far too many hedgerows and pruned little courtyards and snotty rich kids in the upper ring of Ba Sing Se – which, okay, for the record, before anyone said anything, they'd _both_ been awarded full scholarships for, they’d worked their way into this prissy academy with its silk uniforms and looming gates, _on the basis academic merit,_ since while her brother was clearly an idiot, he was not _that_ type of idiot, and of course anything Sokka could do, Katara could do better. This was a precaution, of course, for her dear brother’s sake. She was just waiting for the exact moment her brother would realise what a snow-hare-brained plan this was, for the moment he'd come to his senses, pack up his things again, realise that the Earth Kingdom was backwards and archaic (who, after the era of Avatar Roku, still adhered to anything as outdated as _a hierarchical class system?)_ , senselessly bureaucratic (with a six month wait on getting any pleading permission slip rubber-stamped, let alone _a student visa_ ) and was absolutely _not worth_ any sort of “prestigious” placement at the famed University of Ba Sing Se he’d set his heart on. Then again, Sokka’s particular brand of idiotic involved setting his heart on a plan and nailing in place with a twenty-six point plan, detailing every aspect and sub-aspect of the next twelve years of his life, culminating with his election to chief at the wise, weary old age of twenty-nine – ugh, it was exasperating, the number of tabs in his planner had _tripled_ , wouldn’t he just give up and _come home_ already, she'd chased him half-way around the world for this. 

If you’d asked her how it would have all turned out, she wouldn’t have dreamed of anything like this.

 _(smashed crockery and a baseball bat, quick snaps from a subway station photo booth in stolen clothing, broken bike locks, spicy hot noodles, strawberry tarts, a burned down billboard, a copy of_ The Fire Republic Manifesto _annotated by two separate hands–)_

She was sitting on the floor of a would-be penthouse apartment with mountain views, but was still only bare steel, no windows, just concrete, sawdust, bruised knees from climbing up the wrong ladder, and wind. You couldn’t feel the wind anywhere else in the crammed alleys of the lower ring, all cluttered up with flashing neon signs and cluttered storefronts and twelve layers of posters peeling pasted over each other. The closest you got was the smell of sweet tea in the subway, wafting in from above, before the metalbenders snapped their cables and the trains rushed past. The winds from up here, where she could look over those imposing, concrete walls that cut the city into tiers (‘a bit on-the-nose, as symbols go,’ her brother had said, as their train sailed right over them like clouds), were cold, and they were bracing, and they almost made her think of home.

( _home_. _fierce snows and rough seas and snug furs that smelt of smoke and sealskin and the roar of too-loud snow scooter and the firm touches of her Gran-Gran who liked to show her how they used to hunt and cook and sew, who braided her hair just tight enough that it wouldn’t come undone, with her tough, tattooed, “worn, but not worn out yet” fingers, by the crackle of a fire while she told her about a world where the four nations were at war, and in these stories their women fought and struggled and survived, even if they did not always win._

_home. filled with the sort of warmth you could only find in the shelter from the tundra, from the bleak winds, the warmth found in a thousand chores, in wry laughter, in old stories, at home, those sleepless nights beneath the midnight sun._

_home. where the heart is warm.)_

This wasn’t home, though, was it? The winds were deceiving. No one had a warm heart here. Especially up here, in an abandoned tower on the edge of the lower ring, a dashed dream, aspirational, the whole sector brought to its knees after the economy came crashing down again after the death of Avatar Roku. A desolate place. What was stranger still, though, as her legs swung in the air, as she felt the wind on her skin, that she wasn’t here with her brother, or her old friends, or her elders. The company she had chosen to share it with was far more troubling. She had chosen to sit with _her_ by her side, with her head leaned on Katara’s shoulder, holding close the _worst girl in the world–_

(

_Cold hands, black tea, hot breath, polystyrene cup–_

“It’s a shame. The economic downturn, I mean. But that’s just what Avatars _are_ , now, aren’t they?” she’d said. “Wiggly lines on a graph.”

Katara had almost snorted in disbelief. “You don’t _seriously_ think that, do you? The Avatar is a symbol of hope to people, of great spiritual significance.”

“Hope has to come crashing down at some point. Usually, when the money runs out.” The worst girl took a sip of her tea. “That’s just basic economics, Katara.”

“Don't patronise me. I _know_ how ‘basic economics’ works, thanks.” She clutched her tea close. “You're so needlessly cynical.”

“I prefer to think of it as realistic.”

It’s just realistic, she would say, that her _‘basic economics’_ left ugly steel skeletons where homes and warm hearts should be. It’s just realistic, she would say, that those wiggly lines _broke_ people, left them mourning the lives they should have had, left them hungry and desperate.

An arched eyebrow. “You disagree?”

“I… It’s… You think the world can be explained so simply. That it’s all wiggly lines on a graph. All it comes down to is the cold, hard numbers. A strictly material understanding of the world, where spirituality is just a quaint little tradition. And sure, maybe that _is_ realistic in Ba Sing Se. But the rest of the world doesn't work like this, you know.” She looked up at her earnestly. “It's not like this in the Water Tribe. It's not like this in the Air Temples either. And we both know," she said, catching her eye. "That it's not like this in the Fire Nation, any more. It doesn't have to be _like this_.”

The girl glanced up at her, considering her words.

“We should skip the bill.”

“What? Why?”

“Because my Uncle owns this tea shop, and he was formerly a war profiteer. I think you wouldn't like him.”

Katara glared at her.

“Oh, _come on,_ Katara _._ Don’t you want to stick it to the man? Don’t tell me you’re an armchair activist, now.”

“Azula, first thing’s straight, absolutely _no one_ says ‘stick it to the man’ any more. Secondly, we’re only doing it if _you_ leave them some of your father’s dirty money in the tip jar. The people who work here deserve that much.”

“You are _–_ you know what? Fine.”

She marched up to the tip jar, turned her purse upside down, and emptied the entire thing. All of it. A whole wad of cash. Then, she zipped back to her table, necked the rest of her tea like her life depended on it, and grabbed Katara’s hand tight. “There’s your reparations. Don’t run,” she said, beneath her breath. “Until we get around the corner. We don’t want to attract unnecessary attention.”

As soon as they had turned the corner, they began to race, hand in hand, as fast as they could.

)

  
  


_The worst girl in the world_. She sat with her legs dangling over the edge of the world, shoulders slumped, visibly _pouting_. Katara could not picture her like this, not even in the strangest of her dreams – she was always so precise, always so exact, always one point better than her in advanced algebra, perfect scores, perfect nails, perfect hair – ugh, it _had pissed her off_ , there was not even a breath out of place, most of the time. Only that smug smile she wished she could tear off her pretty pink lips–

  
  


(

“No signal, not up here,” those pretty pink lips had said, without the slightest touch of sarcasm, disdain, or smugness. They sounded excited. They sounded like they could break into a smile. “No-one can stop us.”

She pulled Katara’s hand up the last rung of the ladder, too rough, a little impatient. 

“Oy – get _off_ me, come on, this – wow, this is…” _Amazing._ And the words came out so naturally, and she was so _annoyed,_ she hadn’t wanted to be so impressed, and yet… she grinned, in spite of herself, and let herself spin around with the wind, on top of the world, where the street lights looked like stars. “How did you even find this place?”

The wind roared from up here, between their words.

“It belonged to a subsidiary company whose assets were recently stripped and liquidated by my father,” she explained, with her back turned, strands of hair coming loose. It sounded so brutal, so cold, the corporate world. _Stripped and liquidated_ , like words for ancient torture machines. “This particular site, whose foundations weren’t properly surveyed prior to its construction, was actually built on an ancient graveyard containing several important Earth sages, and, importantly, an Avatar.”

Katara snorted. “It always does come back to the Avatar with your family.”

She grinned. Pretty pink lips parted, to reveal some teeth. “In the Earth Kingdom, you see, an Earth Avatar’s grave is a hallowed site, declared sacred, and belongs to the regional government. This would-be up-and-coming apartment complex exists in a legal no-man’s-land, and construction – or demolition – efforts were argued over hotly. Then, the financial crisis happened, so that scuppered those plans.” She moved to sit down over the edge of the building, looking out towards the horizon. “For better or worse, this eyesore is a monument to them for now.” It was a wicked smile, and took on a mocking tone. “Daddy’s failed attempt at gentrification.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you are _literally_ the worst, Azula?”

At that, Azula twirled around, threw back her head and laughed.

)

The worst girl in the world was always perfect. The worst girl in the world was always a work of art, with her painted lips, perfectly even foundation, armed with razor-sharp talons that Katara had once liked to imagine she had slathered with the blood of her enemies, but more realistically, it was probably a bottle of polish with a name like _Vengeance_ or _Vendetta_ or something equally dramatic. She’d thought she wanted nothing more than to smear it all off, smudge those paints and powders, to vandalise –

  
  


(

They were standing two alleyways away from a gallery. Behind layers of concrete and glass were polished marble floors, bleached walls, tapestries hung in isolation, to be examined, observed, with a detached and cold eye. An exhibition displayed portraiture of Fire Nation royalty, graciously lent to the gallery by a number of former nobles living in exile, for in their nation of origin, they would be torched. Here, out in the backstreets, though, the delicate paintwork applied on brickwork, exploding in detail and colour, was prohibited, the art simply vandalism. 

“Start with the glassware. It’s nothing too precious.”

Katara nodded. She grasped the bat firmly. If Sokka were here, he would have considered its weight and proportions to a traditional Southern Water Tribe club, but she was not her brother, she grabbed it, she swung it, and slammed it into glass –

It shattered, easily.

They yelled. Roared. Screamed Azula burst into manic laughter.

“Sozin drank from those, would you believe, in celebration of his first conquest in the Earth Kingdom.” She was beside herself, ecstatic, in awe, still laughing. “And it’s all _gone._ He’s in _pieces._ ”

It was a wonderful sight.

)

– and now her make-up was running, her face was bare, her nails were bitten down, torn off. The worst girl in the world, de-fanged. The worst girl in the world, whose long, black, silky hair, was now in tatters, hacked off, uneven, like she’d gone at it with the wrong edge of a boomerang, and it was such a shame, she had _such beautiful hair_ –

  
  


(

Azula stood in front of Katara, holding to what must have been some kind if stiff, upright military formation. They were sitting in the same classroom as always: number 3.08A above the history department that caught the best view of the sunset and yet was almost always empty, owing to the fact it was rumoured to be cursed (due to some incident involving old ghosts, a pair of secret lovers, and whispered messages communicated through a carton of microwavable noodles plastered on the wall). Katara did not believe in it (she thought it was ridiculous), nor did Katara’s brother (who refused to consider anything that wasn't explained in strictly scientific terms), and so it turned out, neither did The Worst Girl, (who feared no ghosts nor curses, of course). 

She stood to attention, as the sun streamed in, chest puffed out, chin held high. Hair piled up into its signature bun.

“Katara,” she said, as if the name still tasted foreign in her mouth. “I’d like to braid your hair,” she said, curtly.

Katara sat up, and snapped her book shut.

“You _what?”_

“I’d like to braid your hair,” she repeated, as forcefully as it was clipped.

“What inspired _this?”_

“Katara, you don’t have to be such a dolt about it. It’s a simple request.”

“First, _rude._ Second, you didn’t answer my question,” said Katara. “And I won’t let you braid my hair until you do.”

Azula’s face crumpled up with exasperation. A hand reached to pinch her nose, as if she were dealing with a belligerent recruit.

“You have… very _nice_ hair.”

“Oh, really? Do tell me more.”

“Very… _voluminous_ hair.” The way she emphasised that word. Stretched out the syllables. Vo- _loom_ -in-ous. “And, additionally, I thought you might think it an appropriate bonding activity.”

Katara couldn’t help it. She laughed. “Oh, we are not… no. _No._ We're not- no.” She looked to the side, suddenly, with a wicked smile. “ _Not unless_ you let me braid your hair first.”

Even though she’d barely seen her after _the_ _towel incident_ , the fates had intervened to assign her a seat behind her in Literature class. Katara refused to acknowledge any scrap of evidence of her existence, and she absolutely did not, for the record, look at how the finest strands of her dark hair might have escaped her tightly clasped bun to wisp down the nape of her neck, even _if_ Katara had a very advantageous view of it. No, Azula only existed for Katara to best her – because anything she could do, Katara could do better. 

“Absolutely not,” said Azula.

“So you want to get your fingers right in my hair, but you won’t let me touch yours?”

“Hair is of _particular_ significance in the Fire Nation.”

“Hair is of _particular_ significance in the _Water Tribe._ You’re not special, you know. Why do you think the rules don't apply to you?”

Azula looked at her very seriously. She took in a deep breath. 

(Oh spirits, she was going to take that rhetoric question literally, wasn’t she?)

Then she began to explain, in a tone that could only be described as _magnanimous_ (the sort of word Azula would pluck from a thesaurus to sound _clever_ ), the theoretical basis of the Mandate of Heaven, the cycle of dynasties, how it had been so abruptly disrupted (she did not say end) and how for the proper order of things to continue in the Fire Nation, a child of Fire must return from their long exile, and reclaim the throne, triumphant, and place a crown in their hair. She told Katara all of this as if it were not only truth, but as if she were reciting what she had been told by a particularly enthusiastic history tutor.

Katara struggled to keep a straight face.

“Azula… you can’t _be serious._ You have to be... Who _told_ you that? That’s just… well, that’s just _ridiculous_.” And she began to shake her head, and laugh. “I was beginning to think you were actually half-way intelligent, you know–”

She’d bristled at that. “I don’t require your unsolicited opinion to validate my intelligence, Water Tribe.”

“You seem to care an awful lot about my opinion, for someone who doesn’t.”

“Because unlike _you_ , I actually _respect_ your intelligence.”

She had gone scarlet. Perhaps she was expecting Katara to bend over backwards, in appreciation of her superior argument and logic, and worship the ground that she stood on. It struck her though: perhaps, okay, yes, Azula was _the worst,_ but it was maybe, just a tiny bit, a little bit cruel to laugh. But didn’t Azula deserve it? If anyone deserved it, it was her. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just _ridiculous,_ Azula.”

“No you’re not. You’re not sorry.”

Katara didn’t know what to say to that.

Azula, without saying a word more, spun around, and left. Azula, enraged, and Katara, victorious.

)

She had thought about telling her brother. But that would require having to explain _the eyeliner incident_ and… it was all so needlessly complicated, and she was still _angry_ at him, for trying march off around the world by himself while she would have to sit in a near-empty home, and wait.

(

It was over a week before the next time Katara saw her again. Azula said nothing about monarchies, emperors, or crowns. She sat down, took out her hair piece, and let her hair cascade down her shoulders.

“You must tell _no one_ of this.”

She offered Katara a pink plastic comb – which Katara took – and gave her the most grave look of her life. Katara nodded, as she began to part her hair into three sections.

“I won’t.”

)

  
  


If you had told Katara six months ago she would have been sitting next to _Azula,_ in ruins, as everything came undone, as the whole world came untethered–

  
  


(

“You’re pulling too hard.”

“Stop being a _baby._ ”

“You’re pulling _too hard_ _Katara_ ,” she said, and her voice almost _broke_. 

Katara stopped. Azula’s hands were gripping onto the edge of a table like a broken vice, that could only grasp things hard enough to break them. Something was wrong. 

“Okay,” she said, softly. “Let’s try again, more gently.”

)

  
  


–Well. Katara-of-six-months-ago would have told you, quite clearly, that she would have pushed the great-granddaughter of the last Fire Lord, the proud heiress to an multinational conglomerate that had shady connections to the Ba Sing Se underworld, who delighted in tormenting her peers for wearing off-brand highlighter, off the edge of the building.

Splat. No big loss to the world.

The thought didn’t occur to her now. Well it did, but not without a shudder, guilt creeping up her spine for once being so callous. She wasn’t _evil_ , and unlike _some people_ , she actually tried to care, and now… well, it was different now.

She’d despised her, of course, at first.

It had _really_ started when Katara realised that if her brother wasn’t going to drop out within the first six weeks, she’d have to find people who were remotely tolerable amongst this hive of cliquey snobs who spent the annual income of a small working family updating their wardrobe. She had signed up for every set of sports team try-outs that existed, and without thinking much of it, she’d tried out for the volleyball team. Katara liked volleyball. 

So, it turned out, did Azula.

What she remembered was a quick touch on her shoulder, a smile on those painted lips, a compliment on Katata’s necklace falling from between them. What she remembered when Katara told her it was from her grandmother, and how her eyes widened and seemed to sparkle, framed by those oh-so-long eyelashes of hers, she said:

“Oh, _an heirloom_. How precious.” And Azula laughed, all false and all wrong and all like a twisted joke, mocking. "I'd just _love_ to have you on the team."

The words were cruel. 

(

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, holding her by the fingertips. Her eyes glanced down to her necklace. “I didn’t know.”

Her hands fluttered to her throat, as if it were a little too exposed. The moon was out in full, and in its light, everything was blue.

Azula looked away, suddenly, as if she was aware of where her eyes were, afraid she might have pushed too much.

)

Katara, of course, would not let the likes of _Azula_ stop her from doing excellently in the try-outs, or being accepted into the A-team. Who cared what she thought? Katara most certainly didn’t. Clearly, she was shallow and vapid and mean and had absolutely no depth or positive qualities worth recognising whatsoever. 

(

“Katara. _Katara_ – _please–_ ”

A strong hand was on her shoulder, a warm body at her side, a girl who she met on rooftops, kept secrets under the midnight sky, sworn on the moon and the stars. 

“Listen very carefully. I will let no one hurt you. Absolutely no one. Not unless they want to go through _me,_ ” she said, firmly. “I will devour them before I let them get to you.”

She took her hand, and held it close.

“Including _my father._ ”

)

She persisted. Perhaps, just a little bit out of spite, but largely because she _wanted this_. She’d been in top form for their first week of practice, and had been selected for their first competitive match of the season, and it was all going fantastically well – until a certain someone had _deliberately_ been off their footwork.

It was as if they almost _wanted_ Katara to trip up on purpose. 

She fell, and twisted her ankle. She couldn’t play for the rest of the match. 

Katara had almost slammed Azula against a locker afterwards.

“Hmm,” Azula had said, clucking her tongue, in the changing rooms. Smirking. A hand on her hips. “I’m so disappointed, Water Tribe. Really. Did your dear grandmother teach you how to keep two feet on the ground, as well? That injury's going to take a while to heal.”

An easy shot. Easy to deflect.

“I really don’t know,” said Katara, imagining throwing a volleyball directly at her head. Target: her smug face. Accuracy: 99.9%. “Did _your grandfather_ teach you how to be so awful, or is that a hereditary trait?”

( 

“Oh, no, I’m definitely a _unique_ brand of awful,” she had told her, much later, with a grin. “An original piece of work.”

)

Azula blinked, surprised. Then, her face twisted back into a smirk. “I’m _hurt,_ Water Tribe,” she had said, voice affected, mocking. “Here, I thought we were going to be the _best_ of friends.”

Katara’s knuckles tightened. “Sorry to _disappoint,_ yet again. But we are _not_ friends. Get over it.”

She picked up a towel she could have used to wipe the smirk right off her face, but Katara decided to show some degree of restraint. She was going to be the better woman. She turned to stomp off with it over her shoulder, and simmer over quietly about how she’d insulted her elders—

“I really didn’t think _beggars_ could be choosers. It’s really quite sad, actually, how you slink around at lunchtime all by yourself. Almost pitiable. Does your brother not care? Do your friends and family not care enough to visit? Not even mother and father? It’s almost as if you have no one at—”

Katara spun around. With as much strength as she could put into her arms, she hurled her sweaty towel over her shoulder into her perfect smirk.

“I’d rather _kiss a sea-slug,_ ” she said, “Than be friends with the likes of _you._ ” It was a classic Southern Water Tribe insult that had served well for an insult for generations, because _some_ heirlooms were worth keeping.

She had slammed the door behind her, and didn’t look back.

(

Azula looked down at the piping hot, flavoursome, oh-so-filling stew in her bowl more than a little dubiously.

“Oh _don’t_ make that face. Sea-slugs are _very_ nutritious. You’re lucky that I managed to find a Water Tribe delicacy this far south.”

“I’m going to eat it, Katara.” She sniffed. “I won’t even complain. Not a complainer.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that. You’re going to _enjoy it_ as well, aren’t you?”

Azula narrowed her eyes. As if to spite her, she took her spoon and swallowed a whole sea slug in one gulp.

“Delicious,” she said, unaffectedly. She caught Katara’s eye directly.

Katara sat for a moment, watching Azula trying not to squirm, and keep a tactful straight face, and struggle against the urge to spit out what she swallowed without thinking. Then, she burst into laughter.

Sea-slugs were an acquired taste.

)

Screw all of this, she had thought. Screw trying to make friends in this awful place, screw trying to suck up to all the leeches who slunk behind the _Azulas_ of this world, and their shadows. She dropped out of the volleyball team, the basketball team, in fact, pretty much _every_ extra-curricular except the swim team, because when you’re submerged in water, thankfully, you don’t have to say a word to anyone. She stopped trying to make small talk to the girls sitting behind her in Chemistry, whose compliments about her bracelets or braids were as hollow as Azula’s laughter. The next time Azula, or any of her ilk, would try to mock her, be it shoes or her hair or her make-up, or lack of it, she would call her pathetic and awful and tell her, _right to her face_ , that _she_ must have gotten her sense of humour from her grandmother. Or her lack of it. Because she wasn’t _funny_. She was–

(

“Bitch. You can say bitch.”

“I’m not going to say _that_.”

“It’s accurate. And no great betrayal of your deeply held feminist principles if I give you my explicit permission to do it. Really. You can call me a bitch.” She points to herself. _“Bitch._ It’s easy. You try.”

“No! – I’m _not_ going to call you a _bitch,_ Azula.” She sighs. “It’s almost like you _want_ me to hate you.”

)

  
  


She started sneaking out after curfew. Not because she cared if her brother’s stupid gaggle of friends – she supposed she should be relieved, that he was doing so well with the sudden transition that he’d gathered together a little posse of insipid hangers-on, in fact under any other circumstance she might even have been _proud_ of him – called her _a square_. That particular insult came from a twelve year old punk – Toph Beifong, her name was – who thought she was the coolest thing since fried sea prunes because she had no manners and clung to her brother – the “cool” transfer student, apparently, which had made Katara _laugh_ like nothing else – like a limpet-sloth. _A square_ she had said, in the same tone and manner Katara called her brother _a dork_ – which he indisputably was, he was a two-time junior pai sho champion who read astrophysics textbooks for fun and ran a _Dynasties & Dragons _ game on the weekends. Dork with a capital D. Katara, however? Not a square. Not even a right angle. She wasn’t a dork, or a square, and _certainly_ didn’t need stupid friends from the poetry club or weird twelve year old hangers-on.

(

_Broken locks and red lights and running across buildings at night, grasping her hand, (don’t run), holding tight–_

“You could _try_ being nice for once, you know.” The damn bike lock was jammed. It didn’t matter which way the key turned, it _refused_ to open, they’d been there twenty minutes, and it was driving her absolutely up the wall.

Azula, helpfully, rolled her eyes. “I’m _very_ nice.”

“It wouldn’t kill you, to say please or thank you, just a bit of gratitude, for _once_ in your life.” 

Azula glared at her. Katara didn’t care.

“You know,” Katara continued. “You _might_ actually be able to make an actual, real, genuine friend that way. One you _aren't_ ashamed of showing around in public. Just think of the opportunities! The _possibilities!_ Instead, you’re stuck _with me._ ”

“... I had friends, Katara,” she said. 

Katara blinked.

“Oh. _Oh_ – _spirits_ , I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Azula ignored her.

“They left.” She shrugged, like it didn’t mean much. “But you’re perfectly right, clearly I’m so unspeakably awful that I drove them all away. A pity.” 

“Azula! You’re _not_ – ugh, don’t _speak_ like that. That’s not true, and you know it. I really am sorry.”

She clucked her tongue. “You could just break the lock, Katara. Freeze it off.”

“No, I’m _not_ breaking the lock – ugh, Azula, are you sure you don’t want to talk about this?

She looked at her strangely. 

“I thought the whole point of this,” she said. “Is that we don’t talk about it. We break things, and we don’t talk about it. Was I wrong?”

Katara held her gaze.

“What were their names, Azula?”

The key turned. The lock came undone.

She learnt, then, about a would-be trapeze artist who ran off to the circus, and a girl who liked to collect knives. 

)

  
  
  


“I’m _not_ a square,” Katara had said, more than a little put out.

“Oh _sure_ , Sugar Queen,” Toph had said, with a devious little smile. “I bet you couldn’t even bend a rule without breaking out in a sweat. Face it, you’re little miss goody-goody two-shoes. Might as well quit it while you’re ahead and become a tap dancer.”

She elbowed Sokka, who grinned, while the rest of his little crowd began to splutter with laughter. To say Katara was fuming would have been an understatement.

“Bet, then,” Katara said, before she could stop herself.

“Huh?”

“Put all that money where that big old mouth of yours is.” 

“ _Oh boy_ ,” said her brother, in a very-loud, in fact, not-at-all-quiet whisper, still grinning. “You’re _in trouble_ now, Toph. Better quit while you’re ahead.”

Toph didn’t frown or froth at the insult. Instead, she grinned.

“Alright then, Sugar Queen. I'll bet.”

  
  


(

Azula leaned forward. 

“She bet _against_ you? Against _you?_ ” 

_You_ , her tone said, who’d never willingly back away from a challenge. _You_ , her tone said, who’d never give up, not for anything, not without a fight. _You,_ her tone said, brimming with incredulity, with the beginnings of admiration.

“Mhm-hmm,” said Katara. “Crazy, I know.”

“Was she _blind_ or something?”

)

  
  


She snuck out to the lower ring. For a bet, at first. She’d won that, fair and square. Toph had been mildly impressed, and had coughed up what she owed, but Katara hadn’t stuck around for her to get attached. She snuck out again, not long after that. Maybe because she liked the idea that she could slip past those seemingly impassable gates, with just a few pieces of paper, a clever forgery, and a pretty smile. Maybe because it thrilled her. 

  
  


(

They were sitting on a roof looking overlooking the Firelight Fountain, which they climbed up two different iron stairways through a hidden hatch to get to. Katara had grabbed two cartons of food from a street vendor that she absolutely _swore_ by, which she couldn’t believe Azula had never tried.

“Spiced turtleduck?” Azula had said, with an amused smile.

“And jasmine rice. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted this side of the equator.” She looked thoughtful, for a moment. “Do you ever miss any food from the Fire Nation?”

“Oh, _Katara._ You know I’ve never _been_ to the Fire Nation.

“Oh. I’d thought, well…” She’d thought they would have a summer estate with its own private beach, secluded, white sands and soft waves and sunset views, straight out of a pulp fiction romance. That they’d be able to squeeze around the rules, with enough money, enough time.

“Thought what? They’d rescind my family’s permanent exile just to try the food?” She laughed. “No. I’ve never even tried turtleduck. Don’t look at me like that.”

Katara nudged her shoulder.

“Have you thought about…”

“Going back?” She lowered her eyes. “Sometimes. Less often than I should, I suppose, considering.” She looked thoughtful for a second, before breaking into a smile. “Oh come on. Don’t be maudlin. Tell me some good news.”

Katara smiled.

“I’ve been reading _The Manifesto of the Fire Republic_ ,” she said. “It’s _very_ interesting.”

Azula spluttered with laughter. “Oh, I _bet_. Tell me when you get to the part when they talk about stringing up traitors.”

“Ugh! They’re not – that’s not the purpose of a manifesto. Besides, you _haven’t even read it_. You’re reading my copy once I’m finished.”

“That doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice, does it?”

“No,” said Katara, with a smile. “You don’t.”

  
  


)

  
  


She kept sneaking out. Maybe because she wanted to prove that this wasn’t so different. That this tangle of uneven pavements with flickering street lamps, lighting the world up a soft amber ( _warning, warning_ ), that led to night market stalls stuffed with trinkets and tea lights, crowds bustling beneath streamers of paper lanterns strung between telegraph poles, where stapled flyers for _A Friends of Kyoshi_ meeting that fluttered as loud motorbikes zoomed up a side-street, wasn’t such a foreign place, wasn’t so strange or overwhelming to her, a girl brought up around blizzards that liked to kill the electricity twice every winter, to a girl who knew what harsh winds and lean times were like. She tried new things. She found her way to a bustling tea shop, and sat on the doorstep of a boarded-up old cinema, drinking in the scent of jasmine. A boy with jet-black eyes and a tattered and patched leather jacket smiled at her: she smiled back. Perhaps, she told herself, she would kiss him, if he was nice. She wasn’t like _them._ She wasn’t _one of them_.

  
  


(

_Glitzy fabric and dyed leather and big plastic buttons and gauzy sleeves cut into daring shapes: a feast for the eyes and hands_. 

They’d snuck into a warehouse stuffed with coat racks, cheap fast fashion that was worn by plastic mannequins, in front of a wall of glass. She wanted to touch all the textures and wear all the colours and to stride out in a hat made of glass and feathers and impossible angles.

“So. What do you think?”

Azula had just strutted in front of her like she was walking along the runway lights of a catwalk instead of a dimly lit backroom, wearing big gold-rimmed sunglasses and the most gigantic, more garish pale-pink fur coat that Katara had ever laid eyes on.

“You look like a sunburnt polar bear-dog. Truly atrocious.”

Azula grinned. “I’m keeping it, then.”

“If we get caught, I’m blaming you for looking like a strawberry tart.”

“Don’t be such a wet blanket. We _won’t_ get caught. And if we do, I can talk us out of it.”

Katara placed a hand on her chin. She was wearing a gown with so many sequins on it that it could pass for a mermaid’s tail, and it was easily the most ridiculous thing she’d ever worn (and she loved it). Azula had told her, with a cocky grin as she played the fashion commentator, that it really _did_ suit her, matched her eyes, and well… she was right, actually, and she didn’t know how to feel about that. Something about this all felt _off_.

“Azula, I don’t care about _that,_ it’s more... I just don’t understand why you couldn’t just steal your dad’s credit card. Go to a shopping centre in broad daylight. Buy out every pair of faux alligator-skin boots in the square mile. Watch people’s jaws drop in total dismay. Cause some chaos that you can see.”

“Are you suggesting we should _go to the mall?”_

“I want to do something _visible._ I want to go _dancing_. Or maybe to the beach – Oh, don’t give me that face, that so – ugh, you’re so ridiculous face – I’m _tired_ of hiding. I’m tired of sneaking around. I’m not… I’m _not..._ ” 

The words got caught in her throat.

“I’m not what, Katara?”

“I’m not your _dirty little secret_ , okay?”

Her eyes widened. “Of _course not_. Katara, I would never–”

“But we act like it is, don’t we? That this is something illicit.”

Azula stiffened, and took a breath.

“Katara. My father did not build a fortune by being careless. Do you think he wouldn’t trace every payment made in his name? Do you think he doesn’t keep tabs on every contact in his circle of even the slightest importance?”

“I don’t care what your _father_ thinks.”

Azula narrowed her eyes. She took a step closer, close enough to touch. She leaned in.

“People who think like that end up dead or missing, Katara,” she said, under her breath, and Katara had to lean closer to hear her speak. “People have been killed over less.”

Katara held her gaze evenly. 

“I just want something normal. Like even just a photo.” She brightened, suddenly. “We _should_ take a photo. To commemorate this moment.”

 _“Katara,”_ she warned.

“Don’t say it like it’s such a strange thing. I want something to hold onto.” Her hand reached out, as if to take hers, finger by finger – before thinking better of it, and dangling in mid-air. “We’ll sneak out the back. Find an old photo booth. It’ll be easy.”

It was a funny old tale. A would-be princess and would-be revolutionary in full costume, spinning past the turnstiles of a closed subway station to cram into a forgotten photo booth. Taking snaps.

They took four sets of photos. A pink fur coat with big gold-rimmed sunglasses, and a fishtail dress. Struggling to fit their smiles into the booth. Katara tucked hers into _The Manifesto_ as a bookmark _._

)

She kept sneaking out. Things got more dangerous. She’d sneak out to the lower ring to wander under broken street lights and taste sweet tea, where that same jet-eyed boy gave her a smile full of crooked teeth again, and handed out a crumpled flyer, hand-drawn, with the words _Freedom Fighters_ in bold _,_ leaping out in front of a pair of hooked swords crossed like a pirate flag. She’d let him slink an arm around her, and lead her up a fire escape to a fourth floor apartment, crammed with two dozen other kids – some her age, some younger, all scarred too early. He stood up and spoke passionately of _justice_ , about _taking back_ what was stolen, _claiming_ what should have been theirs – taken by the rich, by big bosses and big business, by the crime lords who held the streets by gunpoint, by the government officials in their pockets. He talked about _resistance_ , he talked about _rage,_ he talked about _us_ and _them,_ and it made her blood simmer and her heart ache and she wanted to love and fight all at the same time – and she felt a twinge of guilt, right then, because was that anger hers? But she swallowed it, when she remembered Gran-Gran’s stories: the Fire Nation had tried to hunt her ancestors, to raid their homes, to break their wills, and it had only taken a hundred years to begin to recover, to heal, and would they ever be quite the same? She’d make that guilt worth something. She’d _do_ something. She’d act.

  
  


(

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re above a simple _dare_ , your majesty?”

“Highness,” she supplied, automatically. It figured. Her Majesty had always been such a pedant. She was frowning, a little distastefully, at the fat, bright-red marker that had been placed in her hand. Perhaps the concept of vandalism was too galling for someone raised with wealth and privilege, if not a crown.

Katara rolled her eyes. “What, you _don’t_ want to be called your majesty? Thought you’d be practically fawning over the idea of having a loyal subject, for once.”

“You are literally – _literally_ – the most disobedient subject I could imagine. I’m pretty sure you’d have stormed Boiling Rock by yourself by now, breaking the chains of all those unjustly held political prisoners single-handedly. You’re not a subject.” She looked up to meet her eyes directly, as if she wanted to pin her to the wall with them, like throwing knives. “You’re a radical. A dissenter.”

Katara couldn’t hide a smirk. “That’s not the withering insult you think it is, _your majesty_.”

“You know, if you said that in earshot of any of the current riff-raff who call themselves _loyal_ to the Fire Nation, they’d have grounds to challenge you to an Agni Kai right there. You know how the saying goes. No Lords, No Masters. Certainly no _your majesties._ Not since the Avatar gave my dear great-grandfather a bath in an active volcano. Wouldn’t that be an unhappy end to your one-girl crusade against the world.”

Katara frowned, partially at how much Azula disdained the simple concept of having principles, and partially at the idea of considering an imperialist bloodthirsty warlord who had sought to destroy entire cultures and nations anything close to approaching ‘my _dear_ great-grandfather’. Before she could say anything, however, Azula spoke up again:

“I was being _sarcastic!_ I’m not – ugh, listen, do you want to represent your activist credentials properly, or not? Words _matter!_ Use the correct vocabulary.”

“Is that why you tried to call my brother a 'peasant' during the first week of term?”

“Ugh. Please _don't_ remind me. I will _never_ conflate feudal aristocracy and autonomous tribal government again, if only to spare the lecture.”

Katara grinned. She could still recall Sokka’s (rather over-exaggerated) dramatic retelling of how he’d schooled Azula quite vividly. (“She looked like she was going to swallow _a lemon_ , Katara,” he had said. “ _A whole lemon.”_ ) Then, a thought occurred to her.

“Is that why you still sometimes call it _the colonies?_ ”

Azula gave her a guarded look. “A slip of the tongue. My father’s documents always refer to that region as such–”

“So you _do_ have something to do with your father’s dirty work.”

Azula looked down. “I’m not _supposed to_ ,” she muttered. “I sneak a look at them, at times. It’s a bad habit.” She looked up at her. “I don’t _participate._ ” 

(Not yet, at least.)

But the look in her eye said something desperate. She was clenching the pen in her hand tightly.

“How about you quit stalling, _Comrade_ Azula. Are you going to actually follow through with this, or… ?”

Azula took a step forward, as if to answer her. She took in a sharp breath. Her hands, if they could have done something as undignified as tremble or quiver, might have shook, but instead they gripped the pen firmly. She pulled the cap off the marker, and held it an inch away from a newspaper clipping, headline blaring: _ROYAL ÉMIGRÉ SNAPS UP LAST EARTH-OWNED REFINERY IN YU DAO, IN HISTORIC PURCHASE,_ that had been taped to the wall, a scathing reminder that even stripped of their titles and dignity, colonialism wasn’t dead (it just wore a new face, a new mask). Biting her lip, she began to draw on the grainy photo beneath, the colour washed out so much that one could only tell the difference between red, green, and black.

“Done,” she said. 

When Katara had asked for an act of vandalism, she had expected a doodle of some bad facial hair (not that one needed much imagination to improve on the original, given he had a terrible goatee already). Or maybe, very angry eyebrows. Perhaps stink lines.

She did not expect the smell of burning. 

The faded picture of the would-be Prince Ozai was mostly intact. He still wore the elegant, tailored robes befitting a station he did not technically have, signing a contract in front of flashing cameras and a crowd. The only difference, she had noticed, was that the left side of his face had been burnt straight off the page. A crisp hole was left where delicate, symmetrical features should have been.

Underneath she had written two large, angry words:

_FUCK YOU_

)

She began handing out flyers and painting banners. She collected scraps of old zines and pamphlets that she read while she kept watch. She brought cartons of food, and scraps of her Gran-Gran’s old war stories, while she caught whispers about what the triads were doing, and found herself drawn to posters of missing women, missing girls, stories of people lost and forgotten in the shuffle.

She let herself read. She let herself listen. She let herself feel angry.

(

She remembered the day like a newsreel. 

Big, impactful headlines running along the bottom. A journalist, wearing a solemn face, eyes caught in the camera. Outside the imposing height of the High Court. “ _The Yu Dao papers,”_ she explained, “ _have incriminated a number of Fire Nation émigrés, most notably amongst them, the former Prince Ozai, for their involvement with prominent underground crime syndicates across the Earth Kingdom. How such a comprehensive account found its way to The Ba Sing Se Enquirer is still unknown. This is Joo Dee, reporting for Channel 7 Evening News–”_

The signal cut. _  
_

She remembered the day. Glued to their old television set, _(the shade of her lips was the same)_ , faulty signal, heavy snows. An old quilt made by her mother wrapped around her. 

)

  
  


She wasn’t _one of them._ She wasn’t like _Her Royal Highness,_ who could not communicate without the airs and graces of mockery, without irony, in a way that made her want to _scream_. She’d had to work for everything she’d got – nothing in her life had been handed to her on a plate. She’d work, too, again, to change it all.

Her brother found out about her night time activities, of course. Toph had tipped him off, that little sneak.

“Don’t say it,” said Katara.

“I’m going to say it.”

“Don’t you _dare_ –”

“What were you _thinking, Katara? Are you stupid?_ ”

His hands were right up in his face. Shaking, almost. She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, you’re such a nag.”

“Yeah, because apparently the moment you got here you had a brain transplant, rocks-for-brains. What were you thinking? You _know_ it’s dangerous in the lower ring.”

“ _Dangerous?”_ She barely hid a laugh. “They’re just normal people, Sokka, living normal lives. Have you forgotten what that’s like?”

“Oh, yeah, totally normal, with that teeny, tiny, miniscule little _organised gang crime problem_ down there, you know. Oh, don’t tell me hanging around a bunch of teenage rebels _isn’t_ painting a target on your back. You could have been stabbed! Murdered! Maybe both!”

“You sound just like them, you know. Every other rich pig who lives up here and thinks they’re _too good_ for everyone else–”

“Katara, _come on_. I don’t like it either, you know.”

“And maybe _you_ refuse to do anything about it, but I won’t. I won’t let people’s prejudices stop me from seeing the _real_ Ba Sing Se. I’m not going to stay _trapped_ up here with these snotty rich kids when I can go where I please–”

She realised, suddenly, that Sokka had stopped talking. He looked at her with a frown.

“Katara, I really can’t talk to you when you get like this.”

“Get like what?”

“Like when you pretend you were forced to come here. Like the whole world is against you, when it’s not.”

Katara blinked.

  
  


(

They’d slunk into the back seats of an empty independent cinema with a feast worth of snacks, salty and sweet, along with the second-hand copy of _Another Tale of Two Lovers: Stories of Romance and Resistance in the Omashu Underground_ tucked beneath Katara’s arm. It was well worn, with dog-eared pages pointing at poems about love lasting through the barest of winters, love laying its roots in barren places and still growing, love as survival, staged against the impossible. She’d told Azula, off-hand, that she’d been wanting to see this adaptation _for ages_. It had been critically acclaimed, considered a forgotten gem of the wave of avant-garde cinema that kicked off the mover’s boom, but for whatever reason, rarely shown. 

And somehow, Azula had found the most out-of-the way showing in the back of a former locomotive factory turned cinema.

Azula moved to whisper in her ear. “I bet this is going to be one of those classic ‘Us’ versus ‘The World’ stories. Sappy claptrap. You know, the Earth Kingdom Well-to-Do just _lap_ this stuff up.”

Katara shushed her, nudged her shoulder, elbowed her side. “Keep it until the end. I’m trying to watch.”

Azula hummed, and smiled. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Less than ninety seconds later, Azula almost dropped her coffee. She sat upright in her seat like she’d been slapped. Katara moved to touch her hand – but she recoiled, in shock.

Neither of them hadn’t expected Oma and Shu to be lesbians in this adaptation.

)

“–You made your choice, Katara,” Sokka continued. “You could have stayed at home where the food is good and the people aren’t total assholes and you can walk where you please. But you didn’t, and now you’re stuck here, and you’re going to have to deal with it. And don’t say _I_ _didn’t tell you_ , because _I told you,_ you know, I told you that coming here was a bad decision, that you were–”

“Hey, Sokka?”

“–being rash – uh, yeah?”

“Shut up.”

She turned and walked away.

“Katara – wait – _stop –_ you can’t _walk away_ from this conversation!”

But she could and she did, regardless of what she was and was not supposed to do. She would do as she pleased. She wouldn’t apologise for what she had done – she didn’t care how sheepish and shame-faced Sokka looked when he passed along a “sorry for being such a jerk-face” note. She crumpled it up, and threw it back in his face. She kept sneaking out after curfew, she kept slipping past the wall, she found herself memorising the names of uneven streets named after dead kings and emperors no-one there much cared for, as she passed handwritten ads, written in black marker, _hire me_ , they said, _for almost nothing,_ slapped onto telegraph poles, _as cleaners and housekeepers and babysitters and street sweepers,_ in this topsy-turvy upside-down world where the important chores were seen as the most menial things, and those in charge did nothing.

She let it bottle up and burn inside her. She didn’t have anyone else to talk to about it.

Until Azula, of course.

(

The flame dancing on the edge of her fingertips was not red, or gold, but _blue_. Blue, not like water, not like the tides, the unseen depths of the ocean, the midnight colours of the sky, but a _searing_ blue, a blue that blazed, a raging blue she felt herself drawn to. 

“Blue always was my favourite colour,” she told Katara, in half a whisper. The sliver of a moon out in the sky was like a shy little smile that she shared on her lips. 

Katara said nothing, but leaned in, leaned close, crept up on the balls of her feet, close enough that she could pull her face by her fingertips, to push her hands through her hair, to unravel what was neatly kept in place by one pin. With a trickle of water, she put out that flame with a quiet sizzle.

“It’s mine too,” she said, as softly, with the widest smile. 

The world was alight behind them. If there was a moment where she should have kissed her, it was then.

)

  
  


Their ill-fated _relation_ – companionship, association, untoward partnership, whatever label Azula wanted to slap on it, because they had both agreed at the beginning, whatever _this_ was, it was certainly _not_ friendship – was not something Katara had ever intended on pursuing. It had occurred entirely by chance. She wasn’t thinking of Azula’s burning brown eyes, her long lashes, her eyeliner wings sharp enough to piece the hull of a first-class warship, when she slunk into some middle-ring mall that held illusions of grandeur, and slipped a plastic container into her handbag. 

  
  


(

“Stop batting your eyelashes at me and keep still.”

Katara sighed with exasperation. “I told you. I _am_ still.”

“No you’re not. You keep blinking as soon as I get half an inch too close.”

“Well, _I’m sorry,_ I can’t exactly control my blink reflex, can’t I?” She grinned. “ _Maybe_ it thinks you’re going to poke my eye out.” 

“You have my solemn _oath_ that I will never, ever try to scalpel your eye out with a make-up brush, or any other similar blunt-ended implement.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you tried to swipe this without even knowing _how_ to use it. Hopeless.”

“Maybe I just wanted to try something new.”

“Really.”

“ _Really!_ Is that _so_ hard to believe? I like a little bit of adventure, maybe.”

Azula hummed, a little _mhm-hmm_ , as she shifted her fingertips. She leaned in closer, and there was a slight, but soft pressure at her wrist where her nails were resting on her skin – and Katara relaxed, for a breath, at the touch.

“There. That’s better.” Her lips quirked upwards. “You can sit still after all.”

)

  
  
  


She’d done it because she was angry. She’d done it because she was fed up. Okay, yes, it _was_ a little bit immature (more than a bit), and maybe she _wasn’t_ coping with her emotions in a healthy, functional way (thanks Sokka, for the input, really appreciated), but it boiled down to something like that. Maybe stealing high-end cosmetics from a department store (coincidentally, owned by the worst father of the worst girl, because _of course it was)_ because she hated rich people with a fervent passion, enough to fuel a thousand Agni Kais, was not a good way of dealing with her frustration.

She hadn’t cared one bit though. She would have done it again. 

It was easier to feel angry. 

  
  


(

It was a room designed to be uncomfortable. The seats were slippery. The light didn’t stay on. The clock was too loud. 

_Tick._

Every tick and tock felt like an exclamation mark that rattled against her skull. The two of them had been manhandled into place like very naughty school children – which okay, they technically _were,_ come to think of it, but it was the principle of the whole thing.

_Tick._

The reality of it hadn’t sunk in. Not at first. She was pried aside by a set of earthbending fingers and dragged this way to a little back office where she was thrown into a green plastic chair – despite her many, many protests, that he had no _right_ to hold her in such a manner – and it’s only then, when she heard a small chuckle to her left, that she realised she wasn’t alone.

_Tick._

It was her, of course. Of course it would be. This was already the worst day of her life so far, why wouldn’t she have to share it with the worst girl in the world?

_Tick._

The rest of the details were a haze. The man who accosted her sat behind an over-sized, almost pompous desk that took up half the room. On it, was a custom engraved name sign in a room full of plastic and shoddy workmanship, that spelled, in elegant metallic script: _Long Feng – Head of Dai Li Security._ Katara watched Long Feng _delight_ in their misfortune, lecturing them quite smugly about how _disappointing_ it was, that two such promising young ladies would do something particularly stupid, while showing them on his square little monitor, the exact moment in all its grainy glory that they’d been caught. 

Just thirty seconds apart. What stupendous luck, he had said. 

He then began to speak, in a grave, solemn voice, about the procedure to come. If they didn’t comply, of course, he’d simply be _forced_ to take this further up the chain, inform the authorities, and in the worst case scenario, face prosecution. 

Their parents would have to be told, of course.

_Tick._

He had given them each a neat little form where they could input all their personal details, date of birth, address, et cetera, and a pencil that had purposefully had the eraser cut off at the end. No mistakes, he said. 

_Tick._

When the phone rang, Katara was holding the still-blank form in her hands. Her pencil point sat next to the box: _Contact Phone Number._ Long Feng stood up, visibly irritated, and slammed the door behind him.

_Tick._

_Tui and La_. What an absolute mess. What a complete and utter mess. What a total disaster. How could she ever explain this – this was so embarrassing – she was _representing the tribe_ out here, she’d been chosen for her merits, her bravery, her determination – she’d known better, she’d been working _hard_ to prove herself – her brother, she could imagine, would be beside himself fretting if he ever found out – and she didn’t want to imagine Gran-Gran’s look of disapproval – and then there was the what was eating at her – what really hurt – what really killed her – 

“What did you swipe?”

Azula was leaning over her chair, crashing straight into her train of thought.

“ _Ugh_.” She did _not_ want to talk to her right now. “Does it matter?”

“Well, clearly enough to risk being stuck here.”

She frowns. “I didn’t _intend_ on getting caught, thank you.”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s a little late for that, isn’t it, Katara?”

“Oh, just _fuck off_ , Azula.”

(Since when had Azula known _her name_?)

“Ooh, she bites,” she said, with a little grin. “Being perfectly honest, I really thought yourself too _high-and-mighty_ to ever sink to this. You always did think yourself better than everyone else, didn’t you?”

Katara stood up.

“I am a thousand, million, billion times the person you will _ever_ be,” she snarled, “Because I _have_ standards, and because I _care._ ”

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to _lecture_ me now–”

“Oh, shut up. Nothing matters, to you, does it? You act as if nothing has consequence, no matter how many people you mock and bully and hurt, it’s all a fun little game, that a few crocodile tears and a wad of cash will solve, at most a small little misdemeanour that your dad will scrub off your pristine record with a snap of his fingers, when it has actual, _real_ consequences for everyone else. People are _hurt_ by you. People are _afraid_ of you.” She was trying not to tremble. She was trying not to shake, as her hands balled up into fists and her nails digged into her palms. “My scholarship had _conditions_ , you know? I could lose my place here. I could…” 

Everything was trembling, her voice broke under the weight of it, the feeling that she’d been holding back, the feeling straining against the dam, wanting to spill out of her in floods, wanting to surge forward–

“ _Tui and La,_ ” she whispered. “My dad’s going to kill me.”

She sunk into her seat, her head fell into her hands, and shut the whole world out.

_Tick._

She did not see the way Azula looked at her with sudden intensity.

She barely registered the words she spoke next. 

_Tick._

“Wait here.” 

_Tick._

She stood up, and opened the door.

_Tick._

Katara sat in silence by herself in a cold room full of cheap plastic. 

_Tick._

A muffled argument could be heard through the walls.

_Tick._

Five minutes later, Long Feng threw open the door, irate, red in the face, like he’d either just shouted his lungs out or been thoroughly embarrassed by a fourteen year old girl. 

“Leave,” he told her.

“But, I…” 

“Just _leave._ ”

  
  


)

  
  
  


It was easier to feel angry than to feel hurt. Than to think about her brother bottling up all his grief and shame and fear into a regimented schedule with exact dates, plotting the course of his life through precise coordinates as if there wasn’t a big gaping hole called _our mother_ that stretched from sea to sea now, as if the world hadn’t been turned upside-down and shattered and they were adrift on a tide that had no rhyme or reason because nothing had made sense since she died. It was easier to lash out at her brother, who had ran away to Ba Sing Se, than contemplate a cold, quiet year where she alone had to face her father, who was still thawing from his grief, whose smiles were still near-hollow thing. It was easier to feel angry, than to think about _all_ the quiet years where her brother froze up all his feelings, and her dad was barely there – buried, still not a corpse, beneath all his new responsibilities and duties as _acting_ chief (the last one had been killed, hadn’t you heard?), and she was the only one, out of all of them, who would cry out in rage and grief and fear. Did they not know keeping their silence, shouldering the storm like glaciers, still, unmoving, just meant she just had more hurt to shoulder? More pain to speak of? Because she could _not_ let her be forgotten, because she could not stay quiet, stay still, stay unspoken. It was easier to feel angry, it was easier to be fed up, than think about how her dad coming back after being drowned with work, in every other village or town or city, in every other house but their own, for two years, _for two years,_ and expecting everything to be normal, everything to just be _fine,_ simple, seamless, smooth. And yes, she had known he was _needed,_ she had known that the smaller villages out on the coasts had been struggling, she had known what he was doing was important, was demanding, was _worth it_ , but wasn’t she worth it too? Didn’t she need him too?

(

Torched billboards. Torn up propaganda. The faces of every councillor and spokesperson that were firmly in her father’s pockets, burnt away. Not even ashes left behind.

They met, that time, on a pagoda in the middle ring that had been transformed from shrine to Ba Sing Se’s Royal Opera House, above which they could hear the edge of a trilling solo, the highest, sweetest, notes. Azula had brought a strawberry tart from the nearest Nomad bakery to celebrate.

“Azula,” Katara said, her face crumpling up with worry. “Your dad’s going to kill you for this.”

She laughed, like it was obvious. She laughed, like it meant nothing. She laughed, like it didn’t hurt.

)

It was easier to run with Azula, to sneak out under the stars, to climb up on the rooftops with her where neither could be seen, to partake in some petty rebellion against a father that Azula clearly hated as much as she loved but couldn’t yet find the words for, couldn’t yet articulate, except by breaking things: breaking rules, breaking priceless antiques, breaking people’s feelings, breaking herself. It was easier to run with Azula, to swing a baseball bat at her feelings, to freewheel around the winding streets of the lower ring on a cheap bicycle while obeying almost none of the traffic rules, red lights, broken locks, stolen tea, racing hearts, hand in hers, hand grasping tight, not wanting to let go–

(

She took her hands, nails that day painted a dangerous red, into hers, and entwined their fingers. She pulled them to her heart, cusped them like something precious. 

Azula almost startled, and pulled away–

“Please,” Katara said. “You can’t do this without me. I won’t let you do this alone.”

)

–it was so much easier to fall for her–

(

“He’ll kill you, Katara.”

“I’ll risk it. I don’t care.”

“You _should._ ”

“I don’t care. I’m _not leaving_ you. I _won’t leave you._ ”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’ll find a way to pull the continents together if I have to. _Or –_ or, you can come with me. _Come with me_. Run away with me. Live with me, in the Water Tribe–” _  
_

“Katara – he won’t just destroy you. He’ll destroy everything you care about. That’s how he works.” She looked away, and then met her eyes again, and it hurt, suddenly, to see her look so earnest. “He’ll break your family. He’ll break your brother, your father, your grandmother. He'll disgrace your mother's memory. He’ll crush everything you hold dear.” 

)

In the way that sharp-tongued, sharp-eyed fourteen year old girls do while running until they’re breathless, because they just snatched something (out of their hands, out of a kitschy tea shop chain, out of a pristine department store owned by someone’s beloved father, out of each other) they shouldn’t have, they just held onto something (tightly, two hands, a promise they couldn’t keep) they shouldn’t have, beneath the moon’s wry little smiles, the winking stars, the night their co-conspirator. From the rooftops, nothing was big as them.

(

_“I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me,” she told her._

_She had wanted to believe it. She had wanted to believe it, so much._

)

Everything else was smaller, up there, where it just was her, the light of the moon, and the cold, heartless wind. It was enough to convince two girls that they could change the world, somehow, together.

  
  


(

She was summoned to the headmaster’s office quite suddenly to meet one of the school’s most important governors. She sat on a hard wooden stool in a room with high ceilings and ornate tiles and waited.

The door opened.

“This is her?” Ozai said.

He was not as tall as she expected, and yet somehow still had a presence that loomed. A sharp widow’s peak and thin, well-groomed brows lowered into a skeptical, calculated position gave him a particular air of dignity while he assessed her for any wrinkle or flaw. It was hard, as his eyes pierced through her, not to think of him as royalty. He was dressed immaculately: the only thing missing was an elegant swirl of a crown in a topknot that felt bare, unadorned.

He looked at her without saying a word more for the longest time while she wore the hardest face she knew. 

It terrified her.

It terrified her, to see him, assessing her like she was beneath him, and she was furious.

“Your name is Katara?”

“Yes,” she said, almost biting the 'sir' that she 'should' have said off her tongue.

“It is a pleasure to meet one of the highest achieving students in the school. Your marks are exemplary. You have scored higher than your peers in every class, except one. Which is it?”

She wanted to lunge forward, and tear out his throat.

“Advanced Algebra.”

He took a step forward.

He leaned closer.

(He was close enough that she could have. She could have killed him, for her – the thought was all too present, all too violent, all too bloody, all too _much_ –)

The corner of his lips twitched, just a fraction, downwards.

Then he turned away. 

)

  
  


Ozai had found out, of course. He’d promptly complained to the school’s board of governors, who had cut her scholarship funding indefinitely. 

(

She’d gotten a sudden phone call in the morning. 

“... Dad?”

“I got the news.”

It hurt to hear his voice crackle over the receiver, sounding so weary. It must have been two in the morning there.

“You’re… you’re disappointed, aren’t you?”

“I’m not… no, Katara. I’m very proud of you, still.” He took a deep breath, perhaps it was a sigh. “I know… I know it hasn’t been easy over there. I won’t pry, Katara. I just want you to know, you can talk to me. I’m here. Not literally, but–”

“Dad, please.”

“Sokka told me. He said something about you looking after a bunch of orphaned kids in the lower ring–”

“ _Dad–”_

“– something about ‘freedom fighters’? Listen I... Katara, I want you to know, I don’t care what the board thinks. I’m proud of you. I really am. You’ve got a good heart. And you’re my daughter, and I love you.”

There was a space. She thought everything was going to collapse in it. 

“... I think Kya would be proud, too,” he added.

She held the receiver to her chest and tried to find her voice again.

“... Thanks, Dad,” she croaked out.

They exchanged a few mumbled anecdotes, awkward catch-up, unrelated news, a few funny stories from Bato, well wishes from Kanna, as always. It took her a long time to put down the phone.

The dam broke free.

Finally, she bawled.

)

Katara hadn’t been told it was explicitly Ozai, of course. It was Azula, who knew more than she was supposed to, who had found out, and told her the truth. That Katara would pack up her bags, and leave Ba Sing Se, and never be seen speaking to her again, or else–

(

“... or else?”

Azula looked away, suddenly. It was raining, and they were huddled beneath an overhanging balcony, and the street lights blurred in the distance, faded into the clouds.

“Azula?” she said softly. “You can trust me.”

Azula told her about her mother, who disappeared. She told her about her brother, who had been punished for daring to speak out, who had been sent to the other side of the world in shame. She told her while the rain kept falling, and Katara kept her hand safe in hers, held it close, held it warm.

)

Katara was going home. It didn’t matter if she pulled the oceans apart to keep them together. It did not matter if she were the moon and the tides manifest, it did not matter if she held the whole world in her hands, she was going home.

It only took three phone calls, apparently. 

She sat with Azula’s head on her shoulder, stroking all those uneven, messy strands of black hair that had been hacked into bits, watching the sun fall away beneath the city, wishing she could freeze this moment in place, and hold it until the last day she breathed. 

It was a while before either of them said anything.

“Come on,” she said softly, with a gentle nudge. “We need to fix up your hair before the sun fades.”

Azula said nothing, and leaned in closer. From inside her jacket, she pulled out a switch-blade that Katara was sure was illegal in six different provinces of the Earth Kingdom, including the Royal County of Ba Sing Se. Katara gave her a lopsided smile (the sort her dad gave, when he was trying to pretend like he wasn’t hurting all the way inside).

“Alright. I can work with that.”

As she pulled out her tangles with the most gentle of hands, and began to slice her hair into something more even, asking her, tentatively, with each cut, “Shorter?” and getting a quick nod, in response, until it sat barely an inch beneath her chin, Azula said, in the quietest voice:

_“I don’t want you to go.”_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She went away on a cloudy day. You could barely see the barest outline of the city from sky-trains that carved up Ba Sing Se’s skyline. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


She didn’t tell her father the truth. She wasn’t ready to, not yet. 

(Not until the trial started, and they got up before first light with the fisher boats to catch the last of the live proceedings over a crackly pirate radio station she showed him how to tune into. He never asked her how she’d learned that. Even the words they exchanged about it were few: Katara showed him a string of snapshots where their smiles broke out of the frames, and he just understood, a firm nod, and then he drew her – suddenly – into a firmer hug, perhaps to hide his own shaking hands. “I’m proud. I love you, and I’m proud,” he said, over and over.)

She wasn’t sure how to tell her brother either. She half-suspected he knew about Azula, somehow. Sibling telepathy, he’d have said, if she cornered him about him, hands wiggling in the air oh-so-mysteriously, with a little snort (because telepathy wasn’t real, _obviously_ ). It was probably because when Sokka went rooting around her stuff – literally, _all_ her stuff – to find a safety pin to attach his new “ _life is like a slice of_ ** _π_** _(pi): irrational_ ” patch to his favourite messenger bag (because somehow Sokka had dropped out of prestigious academy fast-stream to become _more_ _dorky,_ rather than less so), he somehow knew to ignore the back left-hand corner of her sock drawer, where she kept her memory box. He appeared to be aware of a number of dates, including, but not limited to: the day they met, the day they almost got busted for petty theft, the day she cut her hair (she couldn’t say _left_ ), because he was always a little softer to her on those days, a little less of a nag, and even offered to help make her snow-hare stew on those days. He didn’t ask, of course, but he didn’t seem too thrown, either, when he found her trying not to cry her way through that first newsreel, and had brought her a handkerchief and a mug of hot ginger tea (brewed from a box he’d brought back from Ba Sing Se) and had sat down with her, until she leant on his shoulder. 

The person she did tell was Gran-Gran. 

She kept hold of Azula in a box now, full of chopped up photos, broken glass, dog-eared books and torn-up ticket stubs, fragments of memory, bits and pieces, and on the days that felt the bleakest she unwrapped them, held them until it hurt too much, until it wanted to flood out of her, until the dam was close to bursting again.

Gran-Gran looked at the box, and did not see broken things, but saw a treasure trove of stories. She asked Katara for each one. Gran-Gran’s hands, lined and worn with a lifetime of trouble, held hers tightly, with certainty, as she listened intently as Katara explained each tale behind a piece of crockery, a torn-up poster, a burned-through newspaper clipping, a receipt for strawberry tart. She'd listened (and laughed) when she heard the story behind the photo snaps, and had asked her for one, that she could place in her family album, if Katara wouldn't mind (she said yes). She listened, with a look of solemn understanding, as she explained a circled phrase, from a book of prose-poetry by a pair of lively Yu Dao anarchists (shot dead by ex-soldiers running protection rackets): _they might shatter our smiles with a battering ram, but love, ours is to build, not break. Laughter is more than a fragile thing._ She listened, and held her close, as Katara crafted each tale, so it wouldn’t come out in a flood, and push past what she could say, until she turned and said:

“I keep thinking. Did I do enough? I don’t know if I did enough. Those kids still live on the streets. The lower ring’s still a mess. And I left her _behind_ , Gran-Gran. I left her with _a monster_ – how could that ever be allowed?” 

And Gran-Gran held her firm and held her close every time she tried to question and second-guess and told her that she’d given all her heart, and how could anyone ever ask for more?

  
  
  
  
  


Ozai was sentenced for life in the same year as the Avatar was announced. It was the sixteenth year in the Era of Avatar Aang.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It was years, though, before she saw her again. 

It started with Zuko’s surprise-but-not-really-a-surprise almost-birthday party. Well, it started with Zuko, really. Which in turn, started when Sokka decided that he would return to the Southern Water Tribe with his sister (“I wouldn’t let go alone. I’m your brother, not an _asshole._ ” “Hm. You can definitely be both of those things.”) and instead apply to the local tribe-run college. He deviated from his twenty-six point plan, however, to take advantage of their foreign exchange programme to transfer out to the Fire Nation (“It’s the _Republic_ of Fire, Katara,”) in his final year. Which ended up being a lot _longer_ than a year, because he decided to apply to the Caldera’s astrophysics phD programme after he finished his masters degree (he gave some excuse about liking the food up there, which was definitely a lie. “You can say goodbye to your career plan of chiefdom at the wise old age of twenty-nine,” Katara had told him, and in turn Sokka hadn’t poked her in the shoulder, but told her he decided he didn’t really want that, actually after all). This ended up with him bunking up with Zuko, a local tea shop worker with a cosy fifth-floor apartment close to the theatre he helped run, the same local theatre that Sokka liked to volunteer at on weekend mornings. Sokka had _insisted_ that she come visit as soon as humanly possible, pronto, even if she had to drag _the Avatar_ up with her.

She held back a laugh. If anything, it was _Aang_ who was desperate to drag his dearest Sifu away on this latest adventure. She’d put off going, having thrown herself into a tribe youth mentorship programme and then a waterbending masterclass, and then after that, she’d trained to be a counsellor (specialising in disaffected teenagers, believe it or not) while she helped co-run a traditional arts & crafts group at the community centre, and it took Aang to all but pushed her into the bison with him. It’d been more than a year before they crossed through trails of locomotive smoke and steam, high above black sands, steel cities, towers that wanted to brush the skies. If Ba Sing Se was endlessly wide, she had thought, then the Caldera was endlessly tall. 

“There’s no advertisements here.”

“Huh?”

“No billboards. Nothing on sale.”

Aang had looked confused by the question. “I mean, yeah, Katara. Why would there be?”

It was a city full of street lights and foot traffic and food stalls as far as the eye could see, but it wasn’t Ba Sing Se. The grand old palace (that had almost been burned down four times, apparently) had been converted to a bustling museum dwarfed by nearby skyscrapers; its famed landscaped gardens a public park, where people ambled along, for what passed for winter in the Caldera was enough to melt everyone else to a puddle. There were other differences, too: there were no looming walls to cross by night. The apartment was actually pretty _cosy,_ instead of “cosy” being a codeword for “cramped, falling apart.” Zuko had made them tea, and in deep contrast anything she'd tasted in the East, it had been _terrible._

She’d recognised Zuko immediately. She knew his likeness from that burnt through newspaper clipping ( _fuck you)_ that she’d still clung onto, in that box she kept locked away. Which was unfair, really. He held himself so unlike his father – he mumbled through his sentences, and instead of elegant robes, wore mismatching clothes that looked as if they’d been chosen at random off a sale rack – but the resemblance was a little uncanny, in spite of it. 

She didn’t want to say, anything, of course. She desperately tried not to stare. She wondered if Zuko knew, just from how cagey she was, that first meeting. Meeting him was like finding a long-lost puzzle piece, if the completed puzzle meant that your heart wanted to break into a thousand pieces as soon as you sat down and thought about what that pretty picture on the cardboard puzzle box actually _meant._

(How long had Azula been alone?)

She’d tried to swallow it. Settle into an uneasy, which would later become all-too-easy, friendship with this ill-tempered grouch her brother had joined himself at the hip with, this best bud, or more-than-best-bud, if his complete lack of subtlety was any indication (wasn’t he seeing that Northern Water tribe princess on his astrophysics course? Or that Kyoshi roller derby star who’d transferred to the Caldera for a season? Honestly, Katara had given up keeping track. Perhaps he was seeing _all_ of them). 

Katara did not expect to like, or even get on with Zuko, knowing that he was nothing like Azula, and it surprised her when she did. He was easy enough to speak to once you worked past the awkward bluster, had a good heart (and very good book recommendations), and he actually laughed at her jokes – and barely anyone but Aang did that. 

(Well, Azula did too.)

They didn’t talk about the past.

Well. 

“This is kind of… a weird question. But, um, Sokka mentioned you went to the academy with him, and I was wondering… you’d have been in the same year as my sister, I think?”

“Yeah. Uh, yeah. Azula, right?”

His face brightened. “Oh, so you _did_ know her.”

“Yeah, she was…” A right piece of work. A total pain in the ass, at times. The worst girl in the world. The worst girl in the world, who wrapped her hand in hers and held it tight, and wouldn’t let go. Someone she’d give half her heart to see again. “... something. Anyway. How is she doing, now?”

“Better. Much better. Got disinherited.”

“Oh. Uh, I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s a good thing, trust me.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

There was a pause, that was a little too awkward for taste, while she tried to keep a tight lid on the dozens of different questions bubbling inside of her. She glanced around, looking for something else to think about. Counted the number of matching cushion covers and coasters in the living room, a mixture of muted blues and greens, and goodness, Sokka really _had_ made himself at home here, hadn’t he?

“Um, Katara. You’re staying for the whole week, aren’t you?”

“Leaving at the end of it.”

“Good. Um, I’m having a surprise almost-birthday party this weekend, and I know we don’t know each other super well–”

“Hang on, how is it a surprise if you know about it?”

Zuko just shrugged noncommittally, like he hadn’t really thought through the logic of that, or cared much for it. 

“Anyway, would you like to come?”

“Oh – yeah. Yeah, I’d love to, actually.”

He smiled. “Great.”

Sokka, it turned out, while being a horrendous gossip who couldn’t keep a secret for his life, was a very good party planner. Their apartment, decked out in a lifetime’s supply of fairy lights, was brimming with music and buzzing with warm chatter and gentle laughter, and the snack table, of course, was very international. Katara had felt herself blend into the scene like she’d been painted there on purpose, and wasn’t a last-minute, second-thought addition. Her brother had nagged her for her critical opinion of his carefully curated 'surprise' playlist, which she had given a modest 7.4 out of 10 (her brother, it also turned out, was very thoughtful with his music selection when he didn't want to be deliberately obnoxious about it, perhaps that was why she felt herself melt away so easily). He'd spoken about _'the surprise!'_ with an added exclamation mark, and each time Katara had rolled her eyes and told him, Zuko already _knew_ , there was no surprise–

She spent a lot of time dancing with people she barely knew, and it didn’t even matter. 

She had forgotten about Azula. She hadn’t been thinking about Azula, until she caught a glimpse–

Just a glimpse–

“I’m so glad you came,” Zuko said, by the doorway, wrapping her in a hug, this mystery guest, this last minute arrival. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it in time.”

– sharp edges of eyeliner wings (still enough to pierce a fourteen year old anarchist’s heart, all too ready to bleed) –

“I wouldn’t miss this,” she said, and she was smiling. Taller now, still one, oh-so-infuriating inch taller. “Airport traffic can’t stop me. Nothing can.”

– soft pink of her painted lips (brought up into a smile) – 

“There’s a guest I’d really like you to meet, though.”

Her name jumped out of Katara’s mouth before she could even help it.

“... Azula?”

Her eyes widened – in shock – _in surprise_ –

“Is that… Katara? _Katara?_ ”

Azula pulled away from her brother, and stumbled towards her.

_“Azula!”_

And she ran forward and Katara moved to catch her, to pull her into her arms, and they were holding each other close, close again, after so long, and spirits, it was _her,_ it was really _her,_ she thought she’d never see her again–

“Katara…” she said, quietly, her face buried into her shoulder, into her hair, her arms wrapped around her close and tight. “I got disinherited. Did you hear?”

“Yeah,” Katara said. Her smile was wider than the ocean, than the sky. “I heard.”

They laughed. Then, they cried. Then Katara made her promise to come to the Southern Water Tribe (come _home_ , she'd wanted to say) with her, where she could try authentic sea-slugs, go dancing hand-in-hand, and never run out of stars to count and stories to tell. But not before they walked, hand in hers, held tightly, out towards the balcony, where the street lights could pass for stars, and where the heart was warm.

**Author's Note:**

> FIRST OFF a number of water tribe headcanons in this fic came from tumblr user [mostly-mundane-atla](https://mostly-mundane-atla.tumblr.com), who deserves all the credit for them. In particular, the bit where Sokka schools Azula on the structure of tribal govt is directly from there, as well as the reference to the smoky smell of sealskin. Amazing blogger, please check them out.
> 
> secondly, I wrote a bunch of worldbuilding notes [here](https://zuzuslastbraincell.tumblr.com/post/630994889828630529/fun-world-building-facts-about-the-eyeliner), in case you're interested in the politics behind this AU. I tried to keep this understated as possible.
> 
> thirdly, I edited this 4/10/20 to add extra stuff to the ending that just made it 'work' better for me, as well as more water tribe details. you're welcome!
> 
> \----
> 
> hello!
> 
> thank you for reading this far!!
> 
> ugh, where to begin with this? sometimes writing about two teenage girls who swing a bat to everything in their way can be very personal, actually. this absolutely killed me to write but I also had a ball with some parts of it, and I'm very proud of the finished result. please please PLEASE let me know what your favourite flashback was, what you thought, what you enjoyed, what made you laugh, what made you cry (if you cried... I did, tbh).
> 
> thank you so much for reading <3
> 
> find me on tumblr: [zuzuslastbraincell](https://zuzuslastbraincell.tumblr.com/)


End file.
